


A Band of Related Objects

by cupidsbow, Hope



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-21
Updated: 2009-06-21
Packaged: 2017-10-02 11:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupidsbow/pseuds/cupidsbow, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Values within a spectrum may not be associated with precisely quantifiable numbers or definitions, but a broad range of conditions or behaviors grouped together and studied under a single title for ease of discussion." (<a href="http:"></a>wiki)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Band of Related Objects

**Author's Note:**

> For the Spectrum challenge on Flashfic-hub.

*

 

"You bellowed?" Ianto says, leaning tiredly in the doorway to Jack's office.

Instead of a smirk and an invitation to get naked, Jack is staring down at a pile of paper in front of him on the desk. "What's the date today?"

"Fuck, Jack." Ianto pulls his tie off and shoves it in his pocket; he can already tell that's as close as he's getting to a striptease tonight. "You told me you finished that!"

"It's finished!" Jack looks up at him, and in the half-circle of the desk lamp, he suddenly looks old and tired. "It's just... I can't read it any more, and I think I mixed up some of the numbers." He drops his head down, resting atop the stack of papers in a pose of pure despair. "I hate lying to the Queen. She has this Look."

Ianto caves, and goes over to the desk, dropping into the spare chair with a groan. He puts out his hand, and flaps it impatiently. "Give it here."

When Jack doesn't move, Ianto reaches across the desk for the report, tugging it out from under Jack's head; Jack's forehead thunks against the desk loudly. "Ow."

"No sympathy," Ianto lies, not looking up from the report. From the corner of his eye he watches Jack stir, tiredly reaching into a desk drawer and retrieving his bottle of 18-year-old scotch and a glass.

Ianto clears his throat, slants Jack a look reminiscent of of a school marm. Jack pulls out another glass.

He'll make it a drinking game, Ianto decides. For every semicolon Jack uses where a comma will do; Ianto will take a drink.

Three quarters of an hour later, he and Jack are crammed together under the desk. "Shh," Ianto hisses as Jack tries to justify himself over Ianto's shoulder. "If you can't do anything productive then don't--don't!--do anything at all."

The command stills Jack for all of thirty seconds, then he's breathing heavily against Ianto's ear again. Ianto's not even sure why they're _under_ the desk, though he's sure it made sense at the time, even being entirely Jack's idea. He's fairly certain the idea is flawed; even slightly tipsy, he's pretty sure only _one_ of them is meant to be under there. The lamp has its head craned partway under the desk as well, heating up the space like an incubator, but providing just enough illumination for Ianto to read the report. Although it's making considerably less sense the further he reads.

That probably has more to do with the several glasses of scotch he's consumed than Jack's writing skills. Which, frankly, he can't very well complain about; considering how long Jack's been alive, Ianto supposes he should be relieved that Jack doesn't write in ye olde Chaucer's Englyshe.

"You know what we need?" Jack says, slurring the words into Ianto's ear. Ianto feels his shoulder creeping up in response.

"A full-time secretary and a vacation somewhere sunny?"

"A time machine. Then we could take a few days off from weevils, have a sleep and a shag, and finish the report later."

Ianto looks up from the second-last page, red pen poised above the budget figures that, yep, Jack has transposed.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Ianto's slurring a little himself, but obviously nowhere near as much as Jack is. "But isn't that your solution to everything?"

Jack _hmph_s in nonchalant agreement.

"So, if your plan were to... work, then ostend--obstens--ostensibly, there'd be a multitude of us in some damned corner of the Hub, perpetually writing reports?" He turns to face Jack and Jack's wide eyes stare back at him from inches away. Ianto wonders if this means Jack is as disturbed by that concept as Ianto is.

"Want to go find us?" Jack whispers lasciviously.

Instead of answering, Ianto leans forward and kisses him, slow, sweet with alcohol, edged with heat. "Why should we do all the work? Let them come and find us."

Jack bangs his head against the reverse side of the desk in his haste to agree.

 

*

 

"Oh, bugger."

Tosh pauses just inside the door of the employee bathrooms at the sound of the unexpected voice. Her eyes seek out the single closed cubicle, and she lets the door swing shut behind her with its characteristic _creeeak, thud!_

As planned, the non-verbal announcement of her presence prompts the voice again. "Who's that then?"

"It's me, Gwen."

"Oh, Tosh," Gwen says, frazzled relief in her tone. "Look, sweetheart, could you do me a favour?"

In anyone else's mouth, the disconnected endearment would automatically send Tosh's hackles up, but she's used enough to Gwen by now to know that it's not about condescension. At least not in the same way the countless _"Hand me the phillips head will you, sweetheart? The screwdriver with the little star shape on the end? There's a girl,"_ Tosh has experienced had been. For Gwen, _everyone_ is her sweetheart. If Gwen had wings, Tosh is sure the entire team would spend all their time tucked up under them. Cheek-to-jowl with at least half the life-threatening aliens they encountered.

"Out of loo paper?" Tosh enquires, walking forward but hesitating several paces away from Gwen's closed cubicle door, unsure of the etiquette. Tosh has never really understood the politics of socialising in bathrooms, for her it's always been more of a pretend-you're-the-only-one-there affair, for the sake of all involved.

"Not quite," Gwen says. "You wouldn't happen to have a tampon, would you love?"

Ah. "Er, not on me, I'm afraid," Tosh says.

Gwen laughs a little, sounding more vexed than amused. "Bugger," she says again. "So much for the regularity promised by the bloody pill, hey?"

It's been a long time since Tosh has used any form of long-term birth control; she's at a loss as to how to genuinely commiserate, there. "I might have one in my purse," she says. She still needs to pee, but there's no way she can do it while Gwen's sitting in the other cubicle, waiting and listening. "I'll just pop up and see."

There are no tampons in her purse, nor Gwen's purse, nor either of their desk drawers. Tosh jiggles on the spot in the midst of the Hub, at a loss--is it taking friendliness a step too far to run out to the shop while Gwen waits in the loo?

Ianto walks out of the kitchenette, tray in hand. Tosh snaps her fingers and points at him as inspiration strikes.

"Tosh?"

"Didn't Jack say that the autopsy bay used to be more of a... Well, an autopsy bay? Before Torchwood Three got a proper doctor, and not just a coroner?"

Ianto blinks. "...Yes?"

"Where would the first aid kit have been kept back then?"

"Er, in the kitchen," Ianto says, and amusingly proceeds to look a little sheepish. "The old case is still in the back of the cupboard above the boiler, I've not got around to--"

Tosh jogs past him into the kitchen, hauling over the stepladder and clambering up on it to haul the dusty case out. Digging through it uncovers pressure bandages, sticking plasters, antiseptic cream, long-expired aspirin--_yes!_\--an unopened packet of pads, complete with late '90s retro packaging.

"Is everything all-- Oh." Ianto stands aside and she shares a brief moment of sympathy in awkwardness--expressed through a mutual tight-lipped smile--as she bolts past him again.

"Tosh?" Gwen asks hopefully as the bathroom door announces Tosh's return.

"Yup," Tosh returns breathlessly, almost stumbling into the empty cubicle next to Gwen's. Skirt up, knickers down, onto the seat, and nervous peeing be damned; god, that's a relief. She leans over to profer the packet of pads under the cubicle wall separating them.

"Oh, you're a lifesaver," Gwen says, followed by the rustling of plastic packaging being ripped open. "You don't suppose these have a use-by date, do you?"

"Not in case of emergency, I shouldn't think," Tosh replies. "Unless... Well, they've been there for a while. Never know what kind of effect such close proximity to the Rift might have on them."

They both pause for a moment in thought, and simultaneously dissolve into giggles.

 

*

 

Owen knew this was a bad idea; seeing Captain bloody woe-is-me on the other side of the congregation just cements it.

As if he didn't already have enough shitty memories of unexpectedly encountering Jack in graveyards as it was. Even aware of that, Owen can't help the way his entire body seizes up with mingled grief and rage at the sight of Jack's smarmy face. The surge of emotion is just a chaser for the extended slug of guilt he's currently making his way through.

Looking away from Jack to focus back on the proceedings is little help, though that's what Owen came here for; less about making amends to the lump of unforgiving flesh in that coffin and more about paying some kind of penance for his part in its place there. Though, Jack being here now makes his intentions twist even more uncomfortably in his chest; how is the gesture any more than a self-centred wallowing? It's certainly one of Jack's favourite pastimes; is Owen just sinking into the same vat of egotistical justification for bullshit that Jack's been in for... for fuck knows how long?

The coffin lowers jerkily into the pit, edges of the hole draped in carpet as if to fool the assembled grievers that it's more sanitised than it actually is. That their loved one isn't just a mass of organic matter being put in the dirt to decompose. That there's some kind of peace to be found, here.

When Owen looks back up again, Jack's staring at him. Owen holds a sneer at bay just behind his teeth, waiting for a nod, a sympathetic smile, _anything_ from Jack in order to release it. But Jack just watches, impassive, eyes finally drifting away from Owen again to watch the first weeping bystander to drop a shaky handful of soil onto the coffin.

As if this means anything at all. As if being here, doing that, could bring any kind of closure, when the truth is that _everything_ is fucked up, no matter how touching the eulogy or who casts the first fucking handful of dirt.

No matter if it were Jack's orders or Owen carrying them out that dug this extra hole in the earth. It's fucking selfish on both their parts if they think they can come here to try and fill it up again.

Owen walks away before too much of the congregation can turn to leave and see him loitering there like the worst kind of voyeur. The further away he gets from the fresh grave, the less meaning the headstones he's striding amongst hold, walking across gravebeds and dodging tilting crosses. Still, they seem to stretch on endlessly.

Jack's already waiting at the gates when Owen reaches them, god knows how he got there so bloody fast. Jack doesn't clap a hand on Owen's shoulder like most blokes would; he clasps his hand on the back of Owen's neck. Unwelcome as it is, the touch is startlingly intimate, mainly because it's so unexpected; Jack withdraws again before Owen has a chance to cringe.

"Need a ride?"

Owen grunts, gets in the passenger seat.

 

*

 

Four A.M.

The Hub is as silent as it ever gets: the Rift monitor pinging quietly to itself, the creak of old stones settling, the burble of the water feature. Jack puts down the phone and rubs his face, tired but too riled up to sleep. They'd lost a patient at Flat Holm an hour ago; one more lost soul whose body had finally given out.

Jack swivels his chair and stands, not yet ready to go downstairs and slide back into bed next to Ianto's sleeping warmth. Drawn by the endless _hush-hush-hush_ of water, he makes his way over to the Rift pool. It's a mild night, so he hadn't bothered to put on clothes when the phone rang, and the damp air feels sharp and good against his skin. Giving in to impulse, he sits down on the lip of the pool and dangles his bare feet in the water--a chill shock against his heels and toes.

Nights on Boeshane had been like this sometimes. The ocean always colder than it looked, the pre-dawn air almost crisp, the dark shape of bodies near him in the dark. Sitting on the edge of the jetty, bobbing on the water, voices carrying in murmurs and starts as the wind licked around them and then stilled.

Jack closes his eyes, the clicks and rustles of the Hub more familiar now than those long ago wind-carried voices. He holds out his hand. It stays there, empty, until the air moves and a wave of water sloshes over his ankles, and warm leather nudges into his touch.

"Hello, sweetheart." Jack strokes the ruff of skin on her crest and scratches the itchy spot beneath her ear. "Why aren't you off having adventures?"

Myfanwy creels softly in reply and edges forward, hooking her beak over Jack's shoulder, and carefully tucking him up under her wing.

"Oh, it's like that, is it?" Jack says, going limp and letting himself be pulled in, his head coming to rest against her breastbone.

 

*

 

Ianto always left drawer #7 until last. It's one of the most inaccessible cryogenic chambers--up high and locked down with a metal plate welded over the release pad. But that isn't the reason he saves it 'til the end.

"There you go. All done," he says, patting chamber #32 affectionately--Dr Sally Jones, Release Date: 2064--and logs out of the maintenance panel. He has no idea if she's a relation, but he feels fond, nonetheless. "Everything exactly as it should be, doctor." He fills in the final section of the maintenance form, nodding to himself, pleased, and then clips his pen to the top of the clipboard.

"Well then," he says, and looks up at number #7 for a moment, running a hand over his head. "Time for you." With a sigh, he puts down his clipboard and goes to get the ladder.

The rear left wheel squeaks as he pushes the ladder into place, and he makes a mental note to fix it later. He flicks the wheel locks on, retrieves the clipboard and then climbs up. At the top he gets as comfortable as he can, leaning against chamber #6 for support.

The keypad makes little _blip-blip-blop_ sounds as he keys in the security code and starts up the maintenance menu.  


> Power: 98% -- within acceptable parameters  
> Core temperature: 6 Kelvin  
> Life-signs: stable, viable  
> Security: maximum -- DO NOT RELEASE

  
Ianto dutifully copies down the details.

_Return to sleep mode?_ the program prompts, and Ianto hesitates, finger wavering... three clicks, and he'd have access to the _Termination_ menu.

The internal security camera turns in a slow circuit, the hum of its motor barely audible.

Ianto presses the _YES_ button. "You're no brother of mine," he murmurs.

Then he climbs down from the ladder and goes to get some oil for the wheel.

 

*

 

The problem with fighting an alien that's dissolved with a simple dose of h20 is that rain in Wales is not quite as reliable as one might think. So while it's ultimately a relief that a bit of unforecast drizzle saves the day, the fact remains that they now have a rather large stash of pumped-up water balloons to add to their armoury.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Jack asks solemnly.

Gwen hefts a water balloon in her hand, as if gauging its weight and subsequent air speed velocity. "Captain," she says. "I await your orders."

The rest of the team are back at the Hub already--Ianto insisting they get the buckets containing the alien's remains out of range of Jack's driving as soon as possible--which had left Jack and Gwen heading off to the police station to pacify (and, okay, perhaps retcon a little) the detective that had been in charge of the case. The drop off had been too speedy to unload all weaponry from the SUV, so now Jack and Gwen are left with a considerable number of water-filled missiles.

"Lift?" Gwen suggests.

Jack nods. "Attack from above. I like it."

"Thought you might."

They haul the sturdy carry-all across the Plass as stealthily as possible, reaching the paving stone and pausing for a breathless moment to re-survey their surroundings: still clear.

Jack gives a hand signal: _Ready?_

Gwen nods; Jack fiddles with his wrist-strap before securely re-fastening its cover, then quickly grabs two balloons--one in each hand--as the invisible lift begins its slow, grinding descent.

Jack had expected at least Toshiko to be at her desk, or Owen in the autopsy bay, beginning the barrage of tests on the liquidized alien. Ianto would be the hardest to surprise, of course, mainly because he had a penchant for loitering about in the bits of the Hub that were hardest to sneak up on. Jack had been hoping the screams of the others would draw him out.

But, nothing. He exchanges a quick look of concern with Gwen as the lift approaches its lowest position; when it comes to a halt Jack's not sure if he should keep hold of his missiles or pull out his Webley instead.

Gwen takes the decision out of his hands, waggling her fingers meaningfully at him to direct him around left around a gangway while she goes right. Stepping as silently as possible, they get just far enough from the stash of balloons to make it inconvenient to re-arm when a sudden splashing sound draws their attention to the Rift pool.

Tosh, Owen and Ianto are standing shin-deep in the water, Ianto and Owen with their trousers rolled up, all three of them apparently having just leapt from their hiding place behind the water tower. All three of them holding super-soakers, all three of which are pointing at Jack and Gwen.

"Touché, motherfuckers!" Owen screams, and starts pumping.

 

*


End file.
